The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Abilityfest 2007 features films that show disability in the “right light”

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Saturday, Oct 06, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Abilityfest 2007 features films that show disability in the “right light”

Staff Reporter

Festival focusses on special needs and abilities of the differently-abled

— Photo: M. Vedhan

A light moment: Organisers of the India International Disability Film Festival ‘Abilityfest 2007’ with the jury members in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: The cinematic experience is both powerful and inspiring. Yet, the medium remains alien to those with no access to its magic. Theatres in India remain inaccessible to those with disabilities and the films themselves are insensitive to the special needs of this segment of the population.

Abilityfest 2007, India International Disability Film Festival, is a film festival focussed on the special needs and abilities of the differently-abled.

Addressing press persons here on Friday, on behalf of the organisers of the film festival Ability Foundation, actor and vice chairperson of Abilityfest Revathy said the festival was one that would feature films that spoke about or showed disability in the “right light.”

“All the films either deal with some issue about disability or have actors or filmmakers who are differently-abled,” she added. The films screened would be fully accessible to those with any form of physical disability.

“All the films have captions and subtitles for those who cannot hear. They also have audio descriptions of scenes, so that those who cannot see will be able to follow,” she said.

One of the highlights of the film festival was a component called ‘60 seconds to fame’. “People all over India were invited to make a one-minute film on the theme of ‘celebrating diversity’. We received 208 entries of which 39 were shortlisted and viewed by a jury. The jury then selected three winners.”

Also present at the press meet were the jury members – producer Govind Nihalini, director Dev Benegal, social worker Nafisa Ali, actor Prakash Raj, cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran, activist Neenu Kewlani and writer and filmmaker Salil Chaturvedi.

Mr. Nihalani said film festivals such as these were important for the awareness that they created on the issues, and as attempts to change the attitudes of people.

Mr. Prakash Raj said the experience of watching the films and judging them gave him an insight into many things that he had not seen. “As actors, who people look up to, it is important for us to also understand the issues,” he said.

Ms. Neenu said that the medium of films was a strong one to spread awareness to the masses.

Also present at the briefing were Ability Foundation executive director Jayshree Raveendran, president of Abilityfest and chairman and managing director of Cavin Kare C.K. Ranganathan and Director of Abilityfest P.K. Nair.

The film festival will go on for four days beginning Friday.

The venues will be Woodlands Theatre in Royapettah and the South India Film Chamber on Anna Salai.

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